If you’re terted bookg a gay tour of Fland, here are some sizzlg highlights of an excg expedn that mak the most of the untry and season.
Contents:
NEW TOM OF FLAND SKETCHBOOK GO EP TO THE GAY ARTIST’S PROCS
100 Hero: Tom of Fland. The gay man who created art that helped shape queer inty and sire. * finland gay artist *
The gay man who created art that helped shape queer inty and sire. Tom of Fland is the psdonym of artist Too Laaksonen – an erotic illtrator om of Fland’s work as an artist was stmental shapg 20th-century gay culture – his impact is still beg felt today. Laaksonen viewed his homosexualy as a non-issue, and wanted to normalise for everyone else his muny at a time when beg gay was lerally a crime.
“In those days, a gay man was ma to feel nothg but shame about his feelgs and his sexualy. I wanted my drawgs to unteract that, to show gay men beg happy and posive about who they were…” Tom explaed, before he died 1991 om an emphysema-duced stroke.
”The men drawn by Tom of Fland were pretty much the first sex-posive morn art figur pictg gay men – strappg beefk, wh bulgg mcl, big boots, a visor hat and leather, or a mixture of civilian cloth uniforms – everythg about them is big and unapologetilly 1973, Laaksonen had given up his job advertisg so that he uld vote himself to his art landmark 1962 Supreme Court se MANual Enterpris, Inc. At the vatn of Durk Dehner, a gay bsman, film director and publisher. Tom of Fland’s art beme an inic part of the gay visual vobulary durg s time.